A Note from Chris

Good Beer is Worth More Than a Buck

So, what exactly is the buck-a-beer challenge? A simple answer, with a somewhat complicated outcome. In a nutshell, the Ontario government has lowered the minimum price that beer is allowed to be sold for and have challenged breweries to sell beer for as low as $1 per bottle/can. This has created a great deal of “buzz” in Ontario (pun most certainly intended), or has it? Well, in Ford’s campaign, it was a huge deal, and this resulted in proportionate coverage from mainstream media, responses from breweries and questions from the public.

The result of the challenge though? In my opinion, it appears to have fallen flat. So why is that?

Let’s start with our stance on the matter. Below is a social media message that we issued after getting questioned as to whether or not we were going to participate in the challenge by many of our followers/media outlets.

One thing I want to be clear about is that we don’t take a hostile stance toward this program/challenge. The Ontario government has been a big supporter of Ontario Craft Beer and the breweries in the province. WBC and the OCB hope to continue working with them to remove barriers within the province and ultimately benefit the consumer as much as possible (sorry if I didn’t phrase that right OCB, I tried).

I cannot comment for all breweries, and I don’t attempt to. However, I am confident that many share similar values to ours. Our brand rests on the pillars of high quality, locally sourced, and traditionally brewed beer, providing a safe, sustainable, and fun place of work for our staff, supporting the local communities and reducing our environmental impact. These values are not conducive to the budget or low price market space. We position ourselves as a premium craft beer/brewery and believe we provide that. We already make incredibly minimal margins (if any) on our beer, and if we were to sell ALL of our product for only a dollar per unit, we would be out of business within a month. The fact is that costs for breweries have been increasing at an accelerated rate. These costs include, but are by no means limited to, Ontario beer taxes which increase every six months. Taxes alone for a can of beer are approximately 50 cents.

What many people do not realise is that previously the price floor was only 25 cents higher (CHECK THIS). As you probably all know, we did not try to sell our beer for that price, and our pricing was in line with what we hope you believe the quality of our product is. What I find quite amusing is that there weren’t any products sold for $1.25, with the closest being approximately $1.47 (check this). So, if nobody was trying to sell for as cheaply as possible before, why lower the price now?

One argument is to encourage breweries to provide beer for a lower price to benefit the consumer. A proposed incentive to breweries for lowering the cost of beer is offering advertising space in return for accepting the buck-a-beer challenge.

Don’t get me wrong, beer at a lower price is excellent all round – as long as its sustainable.

Another argument is that it’s telling the population what they ‘might’ want to hear to attract votes. I couldn’t comment with certainty over this; however, considering that nobody sold at the previous price floor and that nothing was done to help reduce the cost to produce beer, I certainly think this argument has some validity.

So here we are, a couple of days before the Labour Day Weekend and a few brands have gone live with “buck-a-beer” compliant products, albeit only for a limited time. Why is that? In my opinion, because it’s not sustainable, even for the biggest of breweries.

Has this challenge harmed anyone or caused reason for real complaint? I don’t think in a significant way. For us, it really is a moot point. I’m only commenting because we get asked a lot, and I also find the discussion interesting. It does pose the question as to whether it encourages underage drinking, binge drinking and alcoholism as well as whether it is a diversion away from a more pressing political agenda. These are all topics worthy of considerable discussion.

I’m very interested to see how the new Ontario government continues to work toward benefitting the beer consumer with future initiatives, and if they make sense for our business, they’ll have our full support.

I’ll finish by commenting on a slightly different topic that arose due to our non-commitment to the “buck-a-beer challenge”. We, and other craft brewers, were recently accused of accepting government handouts while not taking the new government up on the challenge mentioned above. My feedback to this is short and straightforward. All of the government funding that we have received is calculated based on economic impact and is often only a percentage of the dollar value that we have to put forward to secure the funding. The support from the government has been fantastic on these projects, and they have resulted in significant job creation and other economic benefits.

Brewery News

Annual Staff Day

The brewery and pub will be closed Tuesday, September 4th at both Riverside and Lakeside to give ourselves a little time to rest, relax, and get tossed around by the Ottawa River. We would like to thank our staff for another amazing and busy Summer. Cheers!

Staff Rafting Day 2017

Beer 101

Dry Hopping: What is all the fuss about?

By Head Brewer Sean

With astrolabe showing strong sales, I’d like to talk about my decision to not dry hop this beer. That’s right. No dry hopping with all that aroma still there. First, let’s delve into what dry hopping is and why brewers do it.

Dry hopping is the process of adding hops to beer post fermentation. Sometimes people will add them during fermentation and some will wait until it is done. The reason for adding hops at this juncture is to add aroma (and some small flavour) to the beer. This will get it to another level of hoppy greatness… but does it?

Most brewers will tell you that dry hopping is essential to their IPAs and APAs. I however, am of the opposite opinion. With oxygen level being the biggest factor in aroma and flavour degradation, why would you want to add any when you have a nice closed system keeping it all out? I think this is just an old school way of thinking of hopping. I’m sure some brewers will think otherwise but I base my opinion on trial and error. I’ve always gotten better flavour with adding more hops to the end of the boil than I do adding them post ferment.

This is what I do for Astrolabe. I add a lot of hops to the whirlpool to get all the flavour and aroma for this beer. And it works perfectly.

Anybody out there feel differently? Do you feel dry hopping is essential to making an aromatic beer? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

A Note From Chris

Summer is Crazy (as always)

Summer finally arrived, and it’s been a challenging one.

The fire that we had in February set us back regarding inventory. We couldn’t brew for two months which meant that we depleted any stock that we had, and we’ve been working at 100% to try and keep up. Our brew team, led by Sean Goddard and our Logistics team led by Jesse Jacques have done a phenomenal job in scrambling each and every week to ensure that beer gets brewed, packaged and delivered. Working at 100% where every litre is critical is exceptionally stressful on people, equipment and systems and I genuinely commend all these team members for doing their best every day. In addition to this, there is now a North America wide can shortage which is making things extremely difficult for many breweries. With can orders getting delayed and even cancelled, we’ve been doing our best to keep a supply of cans via any means necessary. So far it’s not us impacted too severely; however, we’ve been told that this shortage may extend into 2019. We can only assume that this is primarily because of the recent tariffs that have been imposed by the US and have heard rumours that companies such as Coca-Cola immediately bought up two years supply of cans. At this point, we’ve been able to get some speedy orders from new suppliers however the future is unknown for cans which is rather worrying.

Our kitchen teams have been short-staffed since the outset, while a different cause, means the same scenarios in many aspects as the above. They’re all working long hours and operating at full steam every shift. This has resulted in us keeping Riverside closed on Monday’s and Tuesday’s as well as now closing Lakeside on Tuesday’s for the remainder of the summer. The reasoning for this is to both maintain quality when we are open as well as allowing our kitchen team the required time off. I’ve only mentioned a couple of areas of the business above. Everyone in the company is working extremely hard in this busy time; however, I wanted to highlight these two departments that have stood out in my mind. Well done guys!

All of the challenges aside, we’ve been brewing, selling and delivering more beer than ever, to more locations than ever. In fact, in June we sold more than four beers a minute which is pretty cool if you ask us! We have released our first ever canned seasonal (Astrolabe Session IPA – potentially my new favourite), and the kitchen, despite being short-staffed, is operating more efficiently than ever (maybe by force?). When times are so challenging and stressful, it’s essential for us all to remember and highlight the successes and come to the end of the summer, we’ll all get together and spend a day on the river with some delicious, cold beers.

I’d like to close by commenting on by far the worst news that we received in the company’s short history. Just over a week ago we heard that our team member and good friend Adama Blackmore had passed away. This was profoundly saddening to the company as a whole, and I thank everyone for their kind words and support. Adama was not only a hardworking and reliable team member; he was a valued friend to anyone that got to work closely with him and liked by all. He will be sincerely missed.

Cheers,

Chris Thompson

Brewery News

Riverside Season is Coming to an End

Get your fill of BFRs and Bus Eaters while they last. Our Riverside location will be closing Monday, September 3rd. Its been another busy Summer with lots of menu changes and as always we are looking forward to the next. Call 613 582 7227 to make your reservation or visit us online at Open Table.

Tuesdays Snoozedays

It has been a crazy Summer at Lakeside with lots of new and old customers visiting for a pint and a meal. Our staff have been working their tails off and as a result we’ve opted to give them a bit of a break on Tuesdays. Beginning this months the Lakeside Pub will be closed on Tuesdays for the rest of the Summer. The brewery and retail will still be open but don’t expect the smell of bacon as you come in the door. We will be open 7 days a week again in September.

Beer Cocktails

Instead of our usual ‘Cooking with Beer’ recipe we’ve decided to do something a little different. Have a look at the recipe below for our beer cocktail for this month. Just in time for the heat of Summer.

Astrolabe Mendota

Ingredients

Method

Mix Astrolabe, grapefruit juice, and pineapple juice in mixing glass.

Distribute mix among friends.

Garnish.

Cheers.

Events

Sessions Muskoka

August 4

Over 20 Ontario craft breweries will be at this event in the beautiful Muskokas. Great food, craft beer, live entertainment and the great outdoors are the highlights of this busy festival. For more information look here.

CNE Craft Beer Fest

August 24 – 26

In the middle of ‘Food Truck Frenzy’ will be 11 craft breweries serving samples at the Canadian National Exhibit on Toronto. Come for the Tilt-a-Whirl, stay for the beer. Just don’t do the opposite. Look here for more info.